Benefits of Aerating Your Lawn

There are many reasons why aerating your lawn is recommended. Aeration provides many useful benefits to your lawn. Aerating means that you are removing small plugs of soil throughout your lawn to allow air to reach the roots below. This process can be done by hand if you have a very small yard. However, for most lawns you would be wiser to rent an aerator or use an organic product designed for aerating your lawn. Most lawn and garden equipment rental stores will have aerators available for rent; obviously this will be more costly than applying a liquid aerator though.

There are two basic types of mechanical aerators, the spike aerator and the core aerator. If you choose the spike aerator be careful because these can actually cause more compaction of the soil. Spike aerators are named for the large spikes that are driven into the ground to create small holes. These are used more often for extremely sandy soils that do not compact easily. Core aerators are in most cases better for you lawn. Core aerators have a hollow spoke that lifts small plugs of earth out of your lawn.

Some benefits of aerating your lawn include:

Reduction in the amount of weeds

A greater amount of nutrients reaching the roots

Preventing soil compaction

Increases growth

Improves oxygen circulation at the roots

Help the roots absorb fertilizer

Help increase activity of friendly organisms such as earthworms

The best time to aerate your lawn is in the fall. At this time of year the grass has mostly stopped top growth and is building up nutrients in the roots to see it through the winter months. Aerating your lawn in the fall gives the ground a chance to recover and make use of the extra room you have provided with aeration.

After you have completed aerating your lawn you should also take the time to add fertilizer if needed, a pre-emergent weed killer if needed, and fresh grass seed. Doing this work in the fall gives your lawn all winter to absorb the additives and seeding in the fall ensures that grass is full and green in the spring. Try to time it so that the seeds go on the lawn just before a snowfall. This will keep them from clumping up in one spot due to rain or wind. This may sound like a lot of work, but if you chose a solid fertilizer and weed killer you can mix it with the grass seed and spread it all at once with a broadcast spreader.

The following spring you may also want to add some new earth worms to your lawn to help reduce compaction during the coming year. One way to do this is with Encapsulated Earthworm Cocoons™. This is an easy and mess free way to add beneficial earth worms to your lawn or garden. Many people don’t realize just how much these mostly unseen guests can do to help with the aeration of their lawn. Their movement through the soil acts as a natural method of aeration.

But if the idea of having extra bugs in your lawn isn’t for you, then use a liquid lawn aeration product or rent a mechanical aerator. Any of these methods will improve the state of your lawn.

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